According to Engadget, researchers have discovered that "a variant of known ransomware called Locky may be taking advantage of flaws in the way Facebook and LinkedIn (among others) handle images, in its bid to infect your PC".

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Which just isn't very nice. In fact, it's not very nice at all.

According to software security specialists Check Point, the malware trick forces your browser to download a maliciously coded image file that hijacks your system the moment you open it. If you do, your files are encrypted until you pay up.

It does this by targeting delivery mechanisms on some of the world's most used social network sites, such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

This is a rather sneaky (albeit brilliant) way of hacking into OS-based systems, as most security apps explicitly trust many of these sites and – as a result – many people aren't used to worrying about their downloads at sites like Facebook.

Check Point says it told Facebook and LinkedIn about the exploit in September, but it's not clear that there are fixes in place, so it's a good idea to be wary of any downloads you weren't expecting on said sites.

Or maybe just keep your profile picture as that beer-pong-gone-wrong GIF just in case.